13x felon cuts off ankle monitor and puts man in intensive care with a shattered skull

September 13, 2024

A felon with 13 previous convictions shattered the skull of a man and left him for dead on a San Francisco street less than an hour after he cut off his court-ordered ankle monitor.

Samuel Cox, 46, appeared today at San Francisco Superior Court to set a date for his preliminary hearing. He is charged with attempted murder.

Prosecutors say that Cox approached his victim from behind while he was walking on Ellis Street. He “wound his arm back and sucker-punched the victim’s head and face area”. The man fell unconscious to the ground with a blood pouring from his head – he was later assessed to be in a critical condition in the hospital intensive care unit and was diagnosed with a bleeding brain and multiple head fractures.

On August 16 2024 newly-appointed Superior Court Judge Adrienne Rogers ordered the 13-time felon released with a GPS monitor which, court records show, was fitted three days later. On August 25 San Francisco Sheriff’s Office received an alert that the ankle monitor had been tampered with. The next day Judge Richard Darwin revoked Cox’s bail and issued an arrest warrant. He was caught on September 4.

However it transpired that, almost immediately after cutting off his ankle monitor on the 25th, Cox had launched his attack.

He had originally been brought to court after having failed to appear, not for the first time, in an attempted robbery case. He was initially charged in early 2022 since when that case had meandered through the legal process to little effect.

Cox earlier pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the charge of attempted murder and is presently being held without bail in San Francisco County Jail.

Today Judge Maria Evangelista set Cox’s preliminary hearing on the attempted murder charge for September 24. Assistant District Attorney Paul Samra told the court that he anticipated that the hearing would be short: he has two witnesses and a video to introduce.

The case continues.